Europeans React to Pummeling of Dems in Midterm Elections

Leading newspapers and magazines across Europe have all published front-page stories about the outcome of the American midterm elections and the negative implications for U.S. President Barack Obama’s future. The intensity of the European media focus on the 2010 elections has been similar to that of the saturation coverage of the 2008 presidential elections, the only difference being that the Tea Party movement has replaced George W Bush as the new focus of European ire.

Although most European elites no longer elevate Obama to cult-of-personality status as they did just two years ago, in general terms, most reporting about the 44th president of the United States from both the left and the right remains highly sympathetic.

In general, left-leaning publications across the continent have expressed varying degrees of anger and contempt over the setback the Tea Party has dealt to Obama’s efforts to Europeanize the United States. Many left-wing commentators have openly ridiculed the U.S. electorate for not being sufficiently sophisticated to comprehend why Obama’s social policies are in America’s best interests.

By contrast, many (but certainly not all) right-leaning publications have taken the position that Obama has only himself to blame for failing to dedicate sufficient time and energy to turning around the ailing U.S. economy. A number of conservative commentators have also admitted, astonishingly, that a movement similar to the Tea Party would be good for Europe.

In any case, the vast majority of European newspaper editorials express concern that the election outcome ultimately will produce gridlock in Washington until the next elections in 2012, and that this will impede economic recovery in the United States.

What follows is a brief summary of some European media coverage of this year’s midterm elections.

Voters want both parties to work together, but incoming Tea Partiers in Congress are set to throw a spanner in the works. … Behind the scenes, Republicans and Democrats are preparing for all-out political combat on a scale not witnessed in Washington for decades.

Republicans will now be able to use their position of power to wage a guerrilla war against Obama in the remaining two years of his presidential term – the next 24 months are likely to be marked by rancorous partisan bickering and little in the way of new legislation.

With an uncompromising Republican Party back in the game after strong election results, the president has to play hardball. … Republicans will pick fights, and they’ll think they can roll him [Obama]. And they will hold a constant parade of hearings investigating the administration, trying to snare some big administration fish (maybe Obama himself?) in a perjury or obstruction of justice trap. Republicans play for keeps. And now, Obama is going to have to, too.

The easy view to adopt would be that we’re back to normal, and Americans are just mental. Because the people leading the hatred of Obama are characters such as Glenn Beck, spokesman for the Tea Party. Beck hosts a TV show in which during the last 18 months he’s likened Obama to Hitler 349 times. Every night he must tell viewers that Hitler started out with a health-care plan, then things spun out of control so he invaded France. … But the collapse in Obama’s support can only partly be explained by the vitriol of the Tea Party. … Most of those who supported him have lost the enthusiasm that brought him to power. This is probably because so much of the change he promised has been abandoned almost without a fight. … Obama could have listened to the health [insurance] companies, then said: "That’s all fascinating, but the thing is, I was elected President and you weren’t, so piss off." Otherwise what’s the point of having an election at all?

The upshot is that Obama no longer seems "black enough." … It’s not just African-American voters who have stayed at home. White liberals, too, haven’t been nearly as evangelical in their support of Obama as they were two years ago. … The phrase “glacial elitist” is interesting -- code, perhaps, for not black enough? And this complaint is echoed across the liberal media. His left-wing supporters were expecting Obama to be a more quick-tempered president, more visceral, more macho. Is it too much of a stretch to interpret that as a complaint that Obama hasn’t conformed to their idea of how a black man should behave when someone tries to pick a fight with him? It’s as if they were hoping for an adrenalin shot of Negro authenticity, something like the moment in 48 Hours when Eddie Murphy takes down the crackers in the all-white bar. He’s too cerebral, too much of a policy wimp -- too white. In the absence of Obama being willing to serve it up during the midterms, liberals have had to turn to Bill Clinton for a dose of streetfighter machismo and it’s worth noting that Clinton has many of the attributes of Norman Mailer’s "white negro."

For months people have spoken of nothing else. It’s the Tea Party, a collection of people who believe in creationism but deny the reality of global warming; who decry an overly-intrusive state, but dig into the government archives to track and publicly denounce those they accuse of being on American territory illegally; and those who constantly refer to the Founding Fathers, yet violate the spirit of the republic desired by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and the rest. These bigots with their oversized waists and gas-guzzling 4x4s have taken center stage when in reality they represent only themselves – which it must be said is not very much. … The Tea Party is nothing but an obsessional crisis seen regularly in America. Whether it’s the witch trials of Salem or the witch hunts of Joseph McCarthy, the impeachment process of Bill Clinton, Prohibition or the rhetoric of Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, a pact that would pave the way for a Republican majority that evaporated two years later, America loves these obsessions. That’s the fever of the Puritans. They love to see the fever rise so they can delight in the repentance that follows. … The new Tea Party representatives will undoubtedly arrive in Congress where one will hear of them for a few months. And like all of those who preceded them, they will eventually disappear, victims of their own incompetence, after voters regain their senses. Not too late, one hopes.

German politicians believe Tuesday’s congressional elections in the United States will change the landscape of foreign policy. The elections represent a major threat to U.S. President Barack Obama’s power at home … conflicts within American politics could weaken the U.S.’s leading position in worldwide diplomacy. …Germany and Europe would have to take a stronger position in global diplomacy if the U.S. were to take a step back, especially in matters such as the Mideast conflict, Russian-American relations and China’s ascent to the world stage.